For the Defense
About For the Defense
William Foster is a New York lawyer who keeps crooks out of prison and still stays inside the statutes. He wants to marry the dancer Irene Manners, who is also seeing Jack Defoe. Out driving with Defoe, she kills a pedestrian. Defoe takes the blame. A ring Foster has just given her is found at the scene. Foster defends Defoe, decides the ring means he is shielding Irene, and pleads guilty to jury tampering.
Cast & crew
More about For the Defense
John Cromwell directed. Oliver H. P. Garrett wrote the script. David O. Selznick produced for Paramount. Charles Lang photographed. William Powell plays Foster and Kay Francis plays Irene. The setting is New York.
Themes
Look
Charles Lang shot the courtroom and the night street where the pedestrian is killed.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- Scott Kolk plays Jack Defoe. William B. Davidson, Thomas E. Jackson, and John Elliott are in the supporting cast.
- Foster's method, before the ring appears, is to win acquittals and reversals without breaking a statute he can be charged with.
- The charge he finally accepts is jury tampering, not the killing.
- It is a pre-Code Paramount picture, released the same year as Cromwell's other 1930 features.
Scenes
- Defoe says he was driving when Irene hits the pedestrian.
- The ring Foster gave her turns up in the evidence.
- Foster stands up and pleads guilty to tampering with the jury.
